Nature Reviews Immunology | Comment

Presenting the marvels of immunity

Journal name:
Nature Reviews Immunology
Volume:
14,
Pages:
351–353
Year published:
DOI:
doi:10.1038/nri3681
Published online

The immune system is one of the most intensely studied of all human systems. Hundreds of thousands of scientists have spent their days (and lives) trying to understand just one part of it. Yet this vast human endeavour remains largely unknown to the general public. Our community could do more to present immunology as the great and important scientific adventure that it is.

View full text

References

  1. Sagan, C. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Ballantine Books, 1996).
  2. Davis, D. M. The Compatibility Gene (Penguin Press (UK); Oxford Univ. Press (USA), 2013).
  3. Billingham, R. E., Brent, L. & Medawar, P. B. Actively acquired tolerance of foreign cells. Nature 172, 603–606 (1953).
  4. Dawkins, R. The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008).
  5. Medawar, P. B. Advice to a Young Scientist (Basic Books, 1981).
  6. Zinkernagel, R. M. & Doherty, P. C. Immunological surveillance against altered self components by sensitised T lymphocytes in lymphocytic choriomeningitis. Nature 251, 547–548 (1974).
  7. Doherty, P. The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize (Columbia Univ. Press, 2006).
  8. Mukherjee, S. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner, 2010).
  9. Weinberg, R. A. One Renegade Cell (Basic Books, 1999).
  10. Hall, S. S. A. Commotion in the Blood: Life, Death, and the Immune System (Henry Holt and Company Inc., 1997).
  11. Watts, S. Society needs more than wonder to respect science. Nature 508, 151 (2014).
  12. Goldacre, B. What the Tamiflu Saga Tells Us About Drug Trials and Big Pharma. The Guardian (Lond.) (10 Apr 2014).
  13. Wade, N. The Immune System, From the Inside. The New York Times (15 Oct 2013).

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Manchester, 46 Grafton Street, Manchester M13 9NT, UK.

    • Daniel M. Davis

Competing interests statement

The author declares no competing interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to:

Author details

  • Daniel M. Davis

    Daniel M. Davis obtained a Ph.D. in Physics before doing postdoctoral research with Jack Strominger at Harvard University, USA. He is currently a professor of immunology at the University of Manchester, UK, and a visiting professor at Imperial College, London, UK. He has published over 100 academic articles and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, UK, in 2011. In 2013, he published The Compatibility Gene, a popular-level book about the HLA system, which was picked by Bill Bryson in the Guardian's Books of the Year.
    Dan Davis lab homepage

    Search for this author in:

Additional data